Bio

Filmmaker's Bio

Richard Hankin is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and editor, and the founder of Looking Glass Films, an independent production company. Hankin has worked on films for both theatrical distribution and for HBO, NBC, ABC, PBS, Showtime and Netflix.

“16 Acres,” which Hankin directed and edited, won awards at architectural, art and general film festivals around the world, including the Best Documentary Director Award at the Harlem International Film Festival. The film screened at the Louvre Museum in Paris as part of their Best Films on Art series. Variety called the film “Uncommonly engrossing and articulate.”

"Home Front," which Hankin directed, produced, wrote and edited, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, and on the Showtime Network on Veterans Day. Michael Sragow of the Baltimore Sun called the film “Terrific. A lucid knockout of a movie.” And Time Magazine named “Home Front” one of the Top Ten films of the year.

“Capturing the Friedmans,” which Hankin co-produced and edited, won numerous awards, including the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and an Emmy for Hankin’s editing. The film was nominated for an Academy Award and was honored by the International Documentary Association as one of the best documentaries of all time.

Hankin won both an Emmy and an American Cinema Editors Award for his work as Supervising Editor on “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst.” The groundbreaking six-part documentary series for HBO was described by The New York Times as “Frightening, gut-wrenching, remarkable television.”

Hankin has served for many years as a Creative Advisor for the Sundance Institute Documentary Editing and Story Lab, and is on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts Social Documentary Film program. He holds degrees from the University of California, Berkeley and Columbia University, and is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.